Facial recognition cameras catch 20 wanted criminals in one week | 7NEWS
The short version: WA Police's facial recognition trial nabbed 20 wanted people in a week, but the real story is how fast biometric surveillance can normalize once the 'results' start rolling in.
Our Take
Credit to 7NEWS Australia for covering Western Australia's new facial recognition camera trial, which police are already touting as a win after flagging 20 wanted people in its first week. That's the pitch you always hear at the launch of a new surveillance program: look at the bad guys we caught. What you rarely hear in week one is how many innocent people got scanned, misidentified, or quietly added to a biometric database with no say in the matter.
This is the same playbook we've watched play out with license plate readers across the U.S. A five-month 'trial' framed as narrow and targeted has a way of becoming permanent infrastructure once police departments get a taste of the arrest numbers. Facial recognition adds a layer that ALPRs don't: it's not just where your car went, it's confirmation of your face, your identity, tied to a time and place, sitting in a government or vendor database indefinitely. Australia doesn't have the patchwork of state biometric privacy laws that at least some American states do, which makes this trial worth watching closely as a preview of what unchecked deployment looks like.
The U.S. is already there with plate readers, and Flock Safety cameras are multiplying in neighborhoods that never had a public debate about whether they wanted this. Check our camera map to see what's already watching your area, and visit take-action if you want to push back before facial recognition becomes the next 'trial' that never ends.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of 7NEWS Australia, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.